Sports Drinks & Your Teeth

At Boerne Orthodontics & Pediatric Dentistry, your teeth are our number one concern. We want to do all we can to make sure that all our patients are on the right path to a lifetime of healthy smiles. We don’t just provide this compassionate care while you’re here to visit your Fair Oaks and Boerne pediatric dentist – we’re glad to give you helpful advice throughout your daily life as well. One such tidbit that we offer to our patients is to avoid drinks that may be harmful to your teeth, one of the most harmful being sports drinks.

Why Sports Drinks Are Harmful to Teeth

There are two major reasons why sports drinks are so harmful to a person’s teeth. The first reason is because they contain sugar. Consuming too much sugar can cause tooth decay, though the sugar itself isn’t what causes the decay. Harmful bacteria that’s in the mouth will actually feed on these sugars and they’ll produce acid in doing so. This acid will then eat away at the tooth enamel and cause the tooth to decay. It’s essentially this acid that’s the harmful part of the equation.

And that leads us to the second – and most important – reason: sports drinks contain high levels of acidity. In fact, the acidic level of a sports drink is so high that it won’t even take an entire week for them to start destroying your tooth enamel! When your tooth enamel is stripped away, your teeth will be more likely to develop cavities.

How You Can Limit the Damage

Obviously, the best thing to do is not have a sports drink in the first place. Drinking water, milk, or another drink that’s not so acidic is the optimal choice. However, we understand that some people won’t want to quit drinking them entirely and may still get enjoyment out of them. For those people, we simply ask that you take a few precautionary measures in order to both savor the drink and protect your teeth:

- Use a straw to consume the sports drink. This will allow the sports drink to bypass your teeth.- Consume the entire sports drink in one sitting. While this may seem like a worse thing to do, it’s actually much less harmful than sipping it over a long period of time.- You should immediately rinse your mouth out after consuming a sports drink. This will keep the sugar and acid from lingering on your teeth.- A way to neutralize the acid is to chew a piece of sugar-free gum right afterward.- Wait an hour to brush your teeth after drinking something so acidic. Acid will soften your tooth enamel and brushing right after that can wear down your enamel.

Contact Your Fair Oaks and Boerne Pediatric Dentist Today!

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We at Boerne Orthodontics & Pediatric Dentistry are glad to help you in any way that we can. If you’d like to schedule an appointment with your Boerne family dentist, feel free to give us a call at (830) 331-8008. We hope to hear from you soon and help keep your teeth as healthy as possible!